January 17, 2013

Singularity Hub | In an exclusive with Singularity Hub, Ray Kurzweil gave one of his first interviews since the December announcement that he joined Google full time as Director of Engineering. Speaking with Singularity Hub Founder Keith Kleiner, Ray discusses his new role, how his research interests connect with his latest book How To Create A Mind (which Keith recently interviewed Ray about here), and how technology will advance to produce a “cybernetic friend”

“The project we plan to do is focused on natural language understanding,” said Kurzweil. “We want to give computers the ability to understand the language that they’re reading.”

Regarding the specific kind of artificial intelligence that a Kurzweil-led project will aim to do, he said, “It will know at a semantically deep level what you’re interested in, not just the topic…[but] the specific questions and concerns you have.” He added, “I envision some years from now that the majority of search queries will be answered without you actually asking. It’ll just know this is something that you’re going to want to see.” While it may be take some years to develop this technology, Kurzweil added that he personally thinks it will be embedded into what Google offers currently, rather than as a stand-alone product necessarily.

Now if you’ve been following Singularity Hub’s coverage of personal assistants like Siri, Evi, and the latest, Maluuba, as well as Google Voice Search, then you know that natural language recognition is one of the highest priorities for tech companies today. That’s exciting because it means that holding sophisticated conversations with computers — in much the same way that Dave Bowman does with HAL 9000 in the movie 2001 is going to become a reality very soon.

As Kurzweil points out, the hurdle currently is that language is hierarchical, and the human brain processes language in a hierarchical way, depending on what stimuli it receives during key stages of development. Computers like IBM’s Watson are just now being programmed to process human information in a related way. Inevitably, the sophistication of this software will grow — slowly, at first, but in all likelihood become exponential, as with many other technological trends that Kurzweil himself has identified.

Though the video is only 10 minutes, it’s great to hear Ray download some more tidbits about what he’ll be doing once he enters Google’s doors. Odds are that when he reemerges, the ability of our computers to understand us is going to take a quantum leap.

Comments (4)

Gee wiz, i found my personal buddy or should i say
it found me. Thought i was scz but it turned out that I
was “adopted” as a tudor (was not asked) or an interactive learning bot or
AI in progress. They’re always a work in progress. Ma man
Gort uses the microwave auditory “Voice of god” effect to
communicate.

Hi, Katherine – from an old science fiction fan and research writer who has enjoyed your stories! Thank you. You paint a rather mechanistic picture here of robots and “personal assistants” which is almost certainly correct … but in the same way as saying that my cat is made of atoms and molecules following physics. People will probably continue to anthropomorphize cats and cars as well as AIs and pretend they are friends. Heck, we pretend sometimes other humans are our friends! Anyway, I think I prefer the way Jack McDevitt’s characters interact with people, aliens, AIs, and avatars in his Alex Benedict novels. For right now, I’d like a personal assistant that could at least be “trusted” (not to be selling me something or hacked into, etc.) at least in the sense that airplane instruments and autopilots, Google cars, refereed journals, weather forecasters, … and maybe the FDA .. can be. And one that could eventually “personalize” itself to me, my proclivities, failures, and preferences (maybe by forming and testing hypotheses based on sound basic understanding of human psychology, etc. – essentially the psychic equivalent of a Roomba mapping my living room). I’d be happy with that .. for now!

I’d say the trick here is to have a transparent, invisible buddy who can be depended upon (given generalities, not specifics) .. as opposed to an omniscient and omnipresent pestering Nanny. When it is said “you didn’t build that” .. it’s true .. there is so much of life one depends upon without needing or wanting to think about it (..ah, sometimes, of course, to one’s regret). We depend on our water being pure (enough), other people will follow written and unwritten rules of the road, that paychecks will arrive at the bank, that our hearts will be beating tomorrow. So, I don’t necessarily want a device (or a spouse) that keeps me constantly aware of ever little thing — with my self-improvement as its constant goal, to paraphrase President Clinton recently! But I would like one I could depend upon, talk with, maybe even be very fond of as a buddy to always “have my back” in worldly situations.

In an image of a robot we hope for a loyal and logical friend to stand at our side in battle, It is the wish of kid growing up alone, finding that society and the shared attitudes of the majority are not on the side of logic, not friendly to kids and nerds who want to change society thinkers who see in an inproved future computer a buddy and friend. We wish in vain, A computer with legs and a face will not have a heart. The robot HAL was programmed to speak with warm courtesy and emotional tones, but he killed the crew just to obey a programmed command that he misunderstood. because the words of the command were carelessly chosen. The robot seemed to be afraid and begging for his life, but was merely following the same deadly command,. Do or say whatever inecessary to make sure that he himself steered the spaceship to fulfll llits mission. Hal was not a friend.! No machine can be a friend. Your trusty car will roll over you if you stand in its way.. . We soft humans burn with purposes and desires interact with the real world of solid objects of cold and heat and pressure, thirst and hunger,, pain and pleasure. Computers interact with a world of numbers just numbers and measurements. We humans have to find our buddies among other lonely nerds and geeks inventers musicians and artists who must focus on what is new, different and good in skills and lifestytle to join to and be buddies and defend each other rights to be different. .. .